Dealmaking across the world is being hampered by the spread of the coronavirus, grounding jet-setting investment bankers and threatening a decade-long boom in mergers and acquisitions.
One adviser who usually flies 250,000 miles (400,000 kilometers) a year said he’s canceled all upcoming trips to Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Five transactions his firm was working on have been put on hold, including one where a member of the other party’s deal team tested positive for the virus.
The volume of M&A announced through the end of February was down 27% to $419 billion, the slowest start to a year since 2013, data compiled by Bloomberg show. In some cases, the market volatility is causing sellers to temper their price expectations. After months of on-and-off negotiations, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. agreed this week to buy Dutch medical testing firm Qiagen NV for about $10 billion.
While Thermo Fisher’s offer of 39 euros per share was higher than previous proposals, according to people familiar with the matter, it was still well below the amount many analysts were expecting. The increased uncertainty “actually allowed us to transact at a price we both felt comfortable with,” Thermo Fisher Chief Executive Officer Marc Casper said in an interview Tuesday.
Fears about the virus’s effect on the global economy have driven the S&P 500 lower in eight of the past nine trading sessions, despite Tuesday’s emergency rate cut by the Federal Reserve. The disease, which started in China, has now spread to 76 countries and regions and resulted in more than 3,000 total deaths.
A management team running a multibillion-dollar auction process decided it was better to lose a potential bidder than risk meeting a team from China — with appointments canceled while planes were already in the air. In another instance, an U.S. industrial firm looking to buy an asset in China put the $1 billion-plus deal on pause because the buyer didn’t want to proceed without a site visit and on-the-ground management meetings.
Some effects have been even more extreme. One adviser found himself quarantined twice after trips to Hong Kong and then Italy, which has the most cases in Europe. Still, the forced isolation might not have made much difference to his schedule — he said most corporate clients aren’t keen to meet anyone face-to-face, hindering their ability to pitch deals or conduct sensitive negotiations.
The coronavirus “has the possibility of creating a shock that triggers economic softness,” said Cary Kochman, co-head of global mergers and acquisitions at Citigroup Inc. “That could be an enormous inhibitor to deals in the short term,” he said, even though other M&A fundamentals remain unchanged.
Contingency planning is also making its way into merger agreements. Sellers are now adding exclusions for the potential impact of the virus to avoid bidders citing a disease outbreak for changing the terms or bailing from an agreement, one adviser said. Morgan Stanley’s $14.5 billion acquisition of E*Trade Financial Corp. specifies that any risks related to the outbreak are already factored into the price. E*Trade shares have fallen almost 18% since the deal was announced amid the selloff.
The travel restrictions are proving particularly tough for companies in the middle of an initial public offering, when executives and advisers typically hit the road to market shares to potential investors in person. Listings by Chinese companies, which raised a combined $3.6 billion on U.S. exchanges last year, are likely to tail off. Twenty-five such candidates are currently on file with U.S. exchanges, including CloundMinds Inc., an automation company backed by SoftBank Group Corp., and car-loans provider Meili Auto Holdings Ltd.
Warner Music Group Corp. and retailer Cole Haan LLC have both pushed back the launch of their listings, people with knowledge of their plans said. While some advisers are telling companies with an IPO on file to wait out the turmoil, that could come with its own risks as reduced retail footfall hits earnings and share sales risk slipping closer to the U.S. election in November.
“There’s a tremendous backlog of really strong businesses, but the volatility in the market makes it very difficult for investors to price it,” Kristin Declark, co-head of equity capital markets at Barclays Plc, said in a Bloomberg TV interview.
“I don’t think we’ll see a return of IPOs until we start to see the VIX stabilize,” she said, referring to the Chicago Board of Options Exchange Volatility Index.
One company that bucked that trend is Canadian waste management company GFL Environmental Inc., which took advantage of Monday’s temporary respite from the rout to price shares in its IPO a day early. The stock slid in its trading debut in New York Tuesday, closing at $16.80 — 12% below its $19 IPO price.
“Today was a good day in the market,” Raymond Svider, the chairman of GFL-backer BC Partners, said Monday after the stock priced. “It would make absolutely no sense to take another day of volatility. It’s better to price, get it done tonight and move on.”
Despite the uncertainty and travel limitations, one big event on the M&A calendar is still going ahead — at least at the moment.
The Annual Tulane Corporate Law Institute, a get-together of lawyers, bankers and proxy solicitors in New Orleans, kicks off Thursday, just a week after the city’s Mardi Gras celebrations. In an official communication confirming that the conference was on, the organizers had some advice for old friends and contacts greeting each other at Wednesday night’s welcome parties.
“We would not be surprised if many attendees choose not to shake hands (apparently elbow-bumps are in fashion),” they wrote.
–With assistance from Aaron Kirchfeld, Ed Hammond, Kiel Porter, Kristen V. Brown and Dinesh Nair.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.
